Robert A. Long

Robert Alexander Long (1850–1934) was a Missouri, USA lumber baron, millionaire, and philanthropist. He was born in Shelby County, Kentucky in 1850. He moved to Kansas City in 1873 where his Uncle was a banker. He then started a hay bail company along with a friend, Victor Bell. After the company failed, he formed a the Long-Bell Lumber Company where he made his fortune. The Long-Bell Lumber Company was vertically integrated from the forest to the lumber yard and became the world's biggest lumber company in the early 1900s. The company was sold to International Paper in 1956.

By 1906 he owned convert|250000|acre|km2 of pine in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana and converted it into 61 lumberyards. As the timber land was deforested in Louisiana, he moved to Washington State and bought convert|270000|acre|km2 of Douglas fir. There he became a pioneer in reforestation realizing the need for conservation.

He founded the city of Longview, Washington, a "planned city" built in 1923 around two of Long Bell's lumbermills. He personally donated the city's public library, first high school, train station, YMCA hall and its Monticello Hotel.

Long's home in Kansas City, Corinthian Hall, completed in 1911 and Kansas City's first million-dollar home, is now the Kansas City Museum. The convert|250|acre|km2|sing=on Longview Farm was built in 1913-1914 on the outskirts of Kansas City. Portions of the farm are now sites of Longview College and of Longview Lake. He also erected the [http://www.ralonghistoricalsociety.org/longbild.htm R. A. Long Building] , a Beaux-Arts skyscraper in downtown Kansas City.

He was an early investor in the Kansas City Southern Railroad as a source of transportation for his raw material and products.

Long was a driving force behind the creation of Kansas City's Liberty Memorial, a World War I museum and monument.

The R. A. Long Historical Society was formed in 2006.

ources

* [http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1918ks/biol/longra.html Biography of Robert Alexander Long] from A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, copyright 1918
* [http://www.umkc.edu/WHMCKC/PUBLICATIONS/JCN/JCNPDF/JCN015.pdf Robert A. Long (PDF)] , speech by J.C. Nichols, April 30, 1925.
* [http://www.ci.longview.wa.us/community/longview_history.html History of Longview, Washington]
* [http://www.libertymemorialmuseum.org/ Liberty Memorial web site]
* http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/story/362905.html
* "Ours to Give: The Long Legacy of an American Family", Video Documentary

External links

* [http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2007/11/15/18/959-corinthianhall_11-18-2007_D2VMVRA.standalone.prod_affiliate.81.jpgCorinthian Hall]
* [http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2007/11/15/18/151-ra_long_11-18-2007_D2VMVRF.standalone.prod_affiliate.81.jpgR. A. Long Portrait]
*worldcat id|lccn-n84-40319